The Black-ish Spinoff Is Officially Happening

ABC has cancelled an awful lot of series over the past couple of weeks, and the lineup for the 2017-2018 season will look very different. Luckily, there is one show in the Disney-ABC family that will actually be expanding rather than shrinking. Black-ish's prospective spinoff revolving around Zoey Johnson has officially gotten the order for a full first season. Unlike its parent show, the spinoff will not air on ABC. Instead, it will debut on Freeform.

An official name for the spinoff has not been finalized, although the working title is College-ish, which... gets the point across that this is a Black-ish spinoff, I suppose. The first season has scored an order for 13 episodes, which will run for a half hour each. The single-camera comedy won't be hitting our screens any time too soon, however; it's currently slated for an early 2018 debut on Freeform.

Yara Shahidi will star as Zoey Johnson as she leaves her family behind on ABC and heads to college on Freeform. She'll discover pretty quickly that college life isn't all that she expected, and viewers will watch her face issues surrounding students and employees in the real world while also providing a comedic spin. Shahidi will be joined by fellow Black-ish transplant Deon Cole, who will play Charlie as an adjunct marketing professor.

It's not every spinoff that ends up airing on a separate network from the parent show, but it makes sense in this case. Freeform -- formerly known as ABC Family -- is owned by Disney-ABC. After ABC deemed the backdoor pilot episode of Black-ish too geared toward a younger audience, the spinoff was moved to Freeform. Although it will likely reach a smaller audience on Freeform than it would on ABC, College-ish is probably more likely to last on Freeform than it would be in the competitive primetime market on ABC.

A big question now is whether we can expect much character crossover between Black-ish and College-ish. It might have been relatively simple for two ABC series to share characters; it might be more complicated with two networks in the mix. I'm guessing that we'll at least see Zoey back on Black-ish for holidays, but we can only wait and see at this point. Hopefully College-ish turns out to be as much of a hit for the younger viewers on Freeform as Black-ish has been on ABC.

College-ish will premiere on Freeform in 2018. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for the latest in TV news, and don't forget to check out our summer TV premiere schedule to discover all your viewing options now and in the coming weeks. Be sure to drop by our rundowns for cable/streaming and broadcast TV renewals and cancellations as well. Our TV season finale schedule can give you all you need to know about your shows ending.